CDs/DVDs
Album: The Magnetic Fields - QuickiesMonday, 25 May 2020
In pop music, less is often more and it doesn't come much shorter-and-sweeter than Quickies, the new collection from New York songwriter Stephin Merritt. The tracks range in length from a brisk 13 seconds to a whisker over two and a half minutes,... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The Apu TrilogySunday, 24 May 2020
Over the years, the legend of The Apu Trilogy has been much-repeated. Now widely considered India’s greatest filmmaker, Satyajit Ray was little more than a small-time commercial artist when, failing to find a sponsor for his script, he assembled... Read more... |
Album: Diplo Presents Thomas Wesley - Chapter 1: Snake OilSaturday, 23 May 2020
Word has been out for a while that EDM megastar Diplo has decided to throw a curve ball with his musical career, don a cowboy hat and release a country and western album. If that is truly the case, then there must be another disc in the pipeline... Read more... |
Album: The 1975 - Notes On A Conditional FormFriday, 22 May 2020
The 1975’s career is about navigating ambition, and finding ways to be an interesting, worthwhile big band after the music industry and rock music got small. This fourth album rambles and sprawls through 22 tracks, a double-album in no hurry to... Read more... |
Album: Footsie - No FavoursThursday, 21 May 2020
Footsie might not have the profile of a Skepta or Wiley, or even his Newham Generals partner and recent IKEA advert soundtracker D Double E. But anyone halfway schooled in grime will know that both as MC and producer he's a key player from grime's... Read more... |
Album: Badly Drawn Boy - Banana Skin ShoesWednesday, 20 May 2020
In 2000, when Badly Drawn Boy released his debut album, The Hour of Belwiderbeast, it felt like an embarrassment of riches. Along with the string of singles he’d previously put out, ranging from the lo-fi to the luminous, Damon Gough’s creative tap... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Destry Rides AgainTuesday, 19 May 2020
A calculatedly nostalgia-infused town-taming Western, 1939's Destry Rides Again out-sparkled Errol Flynn's contemporaneous light “oaters" and anticipated noir-tinged classics like My Darling Clementine (1946) and The Gunfighter (1950). Because it... Read more... |
Album: Steve Earle & The Dukes - Ghosts of West VirginiaMonday, 18 May 2020
Guy Clark, Steve Earle’s mentor and champion and the singer-songwriter to whom he paid homage on his 2019 album, once said that “songs aren’t finished until you play them for people”. By which he surely meant live, creating that vibe for which the... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Funeral Parade of RosesSunday, 17 May 2020
There is a memorable scene in Toshio Matsumoto’s Funeral Parade of Roses (1969), in which a group of stoned hippies and cross-dressers force each other, one-by-one, to walk the length of a line of tape that runs along the floor. Those who... Read more... |
Album: Tim Burgess - I Love the New SkySaturday, 16 May 2020
What a joy. I Love the New Sky opens with the most un-Stones-like “Empathy For the Devil”. Rolling piano, see-sawing violin and snatches of bubbling synth course through a propulsive pop nugget with cascading harmonies and a McCartney-esque melody.... Read more... |
Album: Charli XCX - how i'm feeling nowFriday, 15 May 2020
This is an extremely impressive undertaking. how i'm feeling now was conceived, written and recorded in under two months, in isolation, with Charli XCX sourcing beats and artwork from a sprawling collective of regular collaborators and... Read more... |
Album: Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - The Mosaic of TransformationThursday, 14 May 2020
A singer-songwriter of somewhat mystical bent, originally from a forested island in the US Pacific Northwest, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith really came into her own when she discovered vintage synthesizers. In particular, her masterpiece, 2016's EARS,... Read more... |
